Tuesday, 12 July 2016

Puritan Island

According to Wikipedia, Australia was
first discovered by Europeans thus:

The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the
first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to
the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula
in early 1606, and made landfall on 26 February at the Pennefather River near
the modern town of Weipa on Cape York. The Dutch charted the whole of the
western and northern coastlines and named the island continent “New Holland” "
during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an
English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland
in 1688 and again in 1699 on a return trip. In 1770, James Cook sailed along
and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great
Britain. With the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government
sent a fleet of ships, the “First Fleet", under the command of Captain
Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was
set up and the flag raised at Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, on 26 January 1788, a
date which became Australia's national day, Australia Day, although the British
Crown Colony of New South Wales was not formally promulgated until 7 February
1788. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration
and settlement of other regions.

Since that time, Australia has emerged from its roots as a
penal colony and developed into a successful nation in its own right, playing a
major role in both World Wars of the 20th Century, becoming one of
the main destinations for immigrants all over the world looking to start a new
life.

Until World War 2, the majority of the settlers and
immigrants came from the United Kingdom, Since then the immigrants arriving in
Australia have been far more diverse and it now attracts people from all over
the world, probably influenced by the image of a carefree lifestyle and freedom,
a warm climate and the sheer size of the country, promoted through various
feature films and TV programs. We have probably all seen the stereotypical images of the
hardened Australian male (usually in the outback where ironically few Australians actually live) and who doesn't know what Kylie Minogue, Nathalie Imbruglia or Nicole Kidman look like ?

What is not so much known about Australia is how it has
become the poster child for prohibition. Australia has gone from being a
libertarian society where fun and social responsibility were not mutually
exclusive, to a country where Government and Public Health exert an ever
tightening grip on practically all minutiae of its citizens everyday life.

Australia also has some of the most draconian tobacco
control measures on the planet. Not only does the Government inflict
eye-watering tax measures on the sale of tobacco (which has led to one of the
biggest tobacco black markets on the planet), but they are also proud of the
fact that they were the very first country in the world to introduce plain
packaging for tobacco products. What Australian Public Health will not tell you
however, is that despite all of the above measures, youth tobacco smoking is
actually INCREASING, as several recent independent studies have revealed.

Now with all the above measures introduced in a failed
attempt to reduce tobacco consumption among its population, you would think
Australia would be keen to embrace any innovation that helped them to achieve
the ‘ideal society’ of a tobacco-free Australia. Yes ?

Sadly, the answer is No !!

For whilst the rest of the world begins to wake up to, and
embrace, the phenomenon of Vaping, the Australian Government is trying its
hardest to kill the emerging vape market.

Nicotine is a banned substance in Australia and it is an
offence to possess nicotine unless you have a Pharmaceutical licence (or, ironically, unless
you buy a heavily-taxed packet of cigarettes). This crazy state of affairs
means that Australian smokers wishing to switch to the far less harmful
eCigarette have to so with nicotine-free eLiquid (hardly conducive to the
success of a heavy smoker trying to quit this way), or by performing an illegal
act by importing the eLiquid (or Nicotine liquid itself) from other countries –
which is exactly what many Australian vapers do.

To further attempt to keep their hands on the exhorbitant
tax-revenue of tobacco, the Australian Authorities are also clamping down of
anyone daring to help smokers quitting tobacco in the non-approved way by
actively shutting down the Australian eCigarette Vendors. I am sure that most
readers will be aware of the plight of Vince Van Heerden, but for those that
are not, you can read his story here. If you are
in a position to help Vince’s fight, I would strongly encourage you to do so.

But they have not stopped there as can be evidenced by this
recent tweet shared by the New Nicotine Alliance Australia

The latest round of complete and utter madness from ‘down-under’
can be witnessed by the following advice allowing for an ‘amnesty’ for anyone
daring to try vaping in an attempt to quit tobacco, released by somebody
(presumably in Australian Public Health)

Dunno about you, but if I was living in Australia, I would be telling the Authorities to be shoving such advice up their 'alternative orifice' !!

So, basically Australia is admitting that it does not give a
damn about the health of Australian citizens and would far rather Australians
continue to smoke (and thus keep on swelling the Tobacco Control tax coffers).
The sheer ludicrous disregard of Australian officials for the health of the
Australian public, let alone their civil liberties, is an absolute joke and
disgrace. Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence emerging in favour of
eCigarettes, Australian Public Health (and we all know who are the main culprits behind
this) are determined to keep their noses in that very deep Australian Tax
trough and continue killing Australian citizens.

Yes, I know we have other (ill-informed) tobacco control
puritans over here in the UK and in other parts of the world. However, here in
the UK at least, we are slowly turning the battle around and we are winning the
hearts and minds. Australia has a much deeper problem.

I am pretty sure that the founding fathers of Australia,
when it emerged from its penal colony beginnings, did not expect that the new–found
liberty and freedom they would enjoy would be slowly eroded away by a number of
self-serving charlatans in both the Australian Government and Australian Public
Health just under 230 years later.

Of course, there are voices fighting for the cause of vaping
in Australia and those voices are starting to be heard. So, if you are
Australian, get out and support the New Nicotine Alliance Australia. NNA Oz (as I prefer to call them) are
making inroads. Their persistence and endeavour is starting to pay off. But
they have an uphill battle ahead of them and they need the support of
Australian Vapers in particular, but also other vapers from across the world
(including the UK and USA).

A closing thought based around how I started this post.

Australia started its existence as a Penal Colony. Whilst
something like that would (rightly) not be tolerated in the modern world, I do
wish we could find another (largely empty) island like Australia where we could
put all of the Prohibitionists in tobacco (and alcohol) control from around the world,
and just let them get on with persecuting each other, going about their drab
puritanical lives and reaching the golden ages they aspire too (probably about
150 years old). Though I strongly suspect they will have died from boredom long
before then !!

At least if all the Prohibitionists were isolated in one place, far away from the rest of the world, then the rest of us could get on with enjoying life and having (a word banned from Puritan dictionaries) FUN !!

UPDATE: I have since been corrected that Jennifer Stone does NOT work in Public Health and may actually be a vaper herself. I was unaware of that when I wrote the original post. Apologies to Jennifer for the error.

About Me

I was born in Wales way back in the year of 1963. I am bilingual - fluent in both Welsh and English - but can also lay claim to having some limited conversational abilities in French, Dutch and German.
My favourite sport is Rugby Union, which I played for more than 30 years until forced to retire due to injury. Consequently, I am a bit bigger than your average guy in that I am 6 foot tall and currently weigh 170lbs.
I am an accomplished musician having played in several brass bands and orchestras, therefore I can play a multitude of musical instruments.